BSO missing a key cue in search for new leader

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I fear that the Boston Symphony Orchestra is missing or choosing to ignore the most critical need facing the BSO as it searches for a new music director (“Keeping score,” Sunday, April 28) — namely, that the orchestra’s leader must be a full-time member of the community that the BSO serves and from which it draws its support.

The orchestra’s board, management, and artistic leadership appear to be out of touch with both the challenges facing classical music and the needs and opportunities found in a Greater Boston community that includes, among other assets, several of the country’s leading music schools, dozens of community music schools, and some of the world’s leading academic institutions.

The BSO should take its cue from the orchestra players, who live here; teach privately or in music schools and conservatories; engage socially, politically, and artistically in the region at all levels; and generously invest personally in our community.

If the BSO does not require its new music director to be a full-time, fully engaged presence in Boston; does not revamp its outreach and educational programs to be more substantive and comprehensive than they currently are; and does not become the strongest advocate for music education and cultural development, then the orchestra will continue its slide into utter insignificance to the overwhelming majority of citizens of the Commonwealth.